KERN NEWS:

Fired From Police Job for Lying, Arizona Lawmaker Tried to Help Cops Who Lie

BACKGROUND

In June 2018, there was a decision by the Arizona Appeals Court - DivisionI regarding a case called State of Arizona v. Jones that resulted in a media frenzy followed by uncertainty from some of Arizona’s medical marijuana patients and dispensaries.

The Jones case did not involve a dispensary to patient transaction, nor did it involve any preparation or mixture of medical marijuana that is currently prepared and sold through the system regulated by the Department.

THE PROBLEM

Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk is using this case to prevent patients with life-threatening conditions to access marijuana in a non-smokeless form.

Although Sheila Polk's actions are an affront to the state Voter Protection Act and an embarrassment to her constituents, it is now up to our lawmakers to prevent such confusion from affecting our medical marijuana patients.

Because the definition of cannabis includes hemp which is now federally legal, the agricultural and manufacturing growth that will be fueled by Arizona's industrial hemp program may be at risk.

Even Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has chosen not to prosecute the case commonly referred to as State v. Jones.

THESE ARE THE FACTS

We have a regulated medical marijuana program in Arizona that has over 188,000 patients including thousands of cancer patients who are not physically able to smoke marijuana and must ingest it or consume it in a different form as an extract.

Click on the table to see the latest report (January 2019) from Arizona's highly regulated medical marijuana program.

We can no longer allow an old definition that contradicts the voter protected Arizona Medical Marijuana Act which supersedes the criminal code to be used as a tool to force patients fighting cancer, epilepsy, PTSD, and other medical conditions to smoke marijuana.

The court system must not be used to force vulnerable and high-risk patient populations to smoke marijuana. It is a waste of taxpayer money and resources which will continue to put the state of Arizona in an untenable position until we fix it.

Hemp extract is legal at the federal level and Arizona is on track to create a whole new industry from hemp agriculture. Since hemp extract is also defined as cannabis according to the criminal code, we have to fix the criminal code and remove cannabis from that statute to be in compliance with our state hemp laws as well as federal law, especially the 2018 Farm Bill and the Interstate Commerce Act.

HOUSE BILL 2149

Representative Tony Rivero(R) filed a bill to deal with this issue on January 16, 2019 and remove cannabis from the Arizona criminal code. As Republicans are in the majority at the legislature, House Bill 2149 has a higher probability of success than a bill with a Democratic sponsor.